Eras of Animation - The 2000's (Part 1)
Since I'm going to do a list of the top 10 worst cartoons of this particular decade (2000-2009) I thought that it might be fun to do a little bit of a retrospective on the era. And maybe I'll do a little bit more on other decades. Now I said that this was one of the worst decades (not THE worst, that's generally agreed on to be the 70's), but this is a particularly bad decade. I will say that this decade had some really, really good gems. That's because the early 2000's were more a less a continuation of the 90's. When I talk about this decade I tend to refer more to the mid-2000's, which not even the early 2000's can really save. It's not even the shows that's most of the problems, it's the trends that started here, and we'll talk about them soon. So, let's take this year by year, and we'll talk about the events as they transpire. Also, to keep this simple, we're going to be largely talking about American animation history. I don't have the time to research the entire world's animation output (even though in this decade, stuff started transpiring international bounds with things like the internet). 2000: When people talk about the "90's" they generally mean like 1992-2002. I'm not saying that these first few years don't really "count." It's just that they're closer to previous trends than future trends. For example, Rocket Power, the show that exemplifies everything annoying and stupid about the 90's started in 1999. Most of the shows you remember from this year are continuations from previous years, like Spongebob or Ed, Edd N Eddy. It's not like there weren't any new shows that aired in this year though. Sheep in the Big City started airing on Cartoon Network at about 11 PM. Later in the year Adult Swim started at 11 PM and Sheep in the Big City was pretty much never seen again. I distinctly remember those two events being intertwined. Speaking of which, Adult Swim (which will be seen as a different network from Cartoon Network) started airing The Brak Show, Sealab 2021, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and Harvey Birdman. Nickelodeon gets two new shows: As Told By Ginger and Dora the Explorer. As Told by Ginger was fine, but Dora the Explorer was terrible, even for an early children's show. Disney channel got the Buzz Lightyear and Teacher's Pet. WB got Jackie Chan Adventures and Static Shock. The only one of these shows that stand out in my memory is Jackie Chan Adventures, and Static Shock, which also began airing this year. Anything else in the realm of shows that aired in this year? God, The Devil, and Bob (which didn't air on Adult Swim until like 2011) and the Happy Tree Friends. All in all, I'd say that this year is "okay." Chances are, you were watching something that aired in a previous year. In the realm of movies though, Disney had two this year: The Emperor's New Groove and Dinosaur. Dinosaur is bland as shit, but the Emperor's New Groove is one of their best movies of the 2000's. This is largely an opinion thing, but I don't think that it's as good as the classics from the Disney Renaissance, and the only ones that hit THAT level of quality this decade will be Lilo & Stitch and the Princess and the Frog. Unfortunately, this was before the social media revolution and a movie's image often determined its success. Dinosaur's trailers made it look like an epic journey on the level of the Land Before Time, while The Emperor's New Groove looked cheesy and stared David Spade. Bottom line, Dinosaur earned almost twice that of the Emperor's New Groove in the Box Office. Speaking of Disney though, they were still releasing those godawful cheapquels. This year's was The Little Mermaid II, which was basically the first one repackaged with lesser animation. Speaking of which, there were also Don Bluth cheapquels: the fourth fucking American Tail movie and the seventh fucking Land Before Time movie. I'm just going to save us all some time, these things were rampant throughout the decade until John Lasseter took over and before Pixar began to grind the Cars franchise into a watery pulp. Don Bluth released Titan A.E. and didn't even make half of its budget in the box office. What I'm saying here is the cheapquels of Don Bluth movies made more money than the film with time, effort, and a passionate animator. And this was pretty much the last film Don Bluth worked on. This was an awkward time for Dreamworks. They didn't have much of an identity yet. They released two films: The Road to El Dorado and Chicken Run (with Aardman Animation). I think both of those movies are good, but they didn't exactly set the world on fire. You can clearly see that the trends have begun getting set: the copy-and-paste stuff or the all-style-no-substance efforts were making more money than the ones that had a lot more passion or effort behind them. This is going to be a leech on this decade as everyone begins trying to find the quickest way to make a buck. 2001: There were some big, major changes in the realm of animation this year. Once again, let's take a look at television to start off. Cartoon Network did fucking awesome. Samurai Jack aired this year, and it's my favorite animated series of all time. Time Squad and Grim & Evil also aired, which were pretty good standby's. I still see Grim & Evil re-runs today. On Nickelodeon we've got the Fairly Odd Parents and Invader Zim. FOP started out good, but it went on way too long for its (or anyone's) own good. And we all know that Invader Zim was cut for some reason or another. So did the Proud Family AND House of Mouse. That's a pretty good line up. Now let's talk about the crap. First of all, John K. works on a show called "The Ripping Friends." Basically what happened was the network decided to take a guy's show who's bread and butter was essentially never using the same expression twice and made all of the character's perfectly on-model. Instead of being enjoyable to grossout fans it ended up enjoyable to no one. There's the Butt Ugly Martians that was aired on Nickelodeon. It's as good as it sounds. Totally Spies is essentially Kim Possible light that no one would give a second glance if it didn't appeal to EVERY FETISH IMAGINABLE. You've got an inflation fetish? Totally Spies has an episode for you. Age regression? Totally Spies. Amnesia? Yup. Becoming part animal? Uh-huh. Then there's Lloyd in Space, or as it should be called "Doug in Space" because it's about as interesting. Television is uh... half-and-half. As for movies there are several we've got to talk about. Let's start with Atlantis. Personally, I like this movie. It's not one of my favorites, but I like it (and there will be more time to talk about it when I eventually review Atlantis II). It was a financial success, but not nearly as much as fucking Dinosaur (this is going to be important). Another important film this year? Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within. Not talking about anything else, this film uses motion capture. Now depending on your definition of this process, we've been doing this for quite awhile. Actual people acted out Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) so animators could reference. As far as I can tell this is the first film where all of the people were done in computer motion capture making everyone look like broken unemotional toy-puppets. It remains the most expensive video game movie to ever make. And for some reason that inspired some idiotic decision somewhere to make a company where ALL of their fucking films required this technology. I like Polar Express. I'd like it a fuck-ton more if it wasn't in motion capture. Monster House? I like that movie. The motion capture was unnecessary. Just CG the stupid thing if you don't want to hand-draw it. It's cheaper, easier, and gives you a better result. But speaking of CGI, Dreamworks released Shrek this year. Oh boy, I have to talk about these films. Shrek is mostly a parody film. It's very largely a parody of animation: taking a typical Disney-esque story and making it absolutely ridiculous. It worked. Critics loved this, consumers loved this, and this changed the history of theatrical animation forever. I'm not kidding. Let me put this in perspective: Spirited Away is known as one of the greatest animated films and it came out this same year. Shrek made more than Spirited Away. For a very, very long time, this is the film that everyone wanted to be. That includes Disney. Let me explain this simply. It would be like if Scary Movie parodied a Stanley Kubrick movie, and had enormous success so Stanley Kubrick decided to stop making impressive and genre-defining films and tried to make Scary Movie. The best film this year was Monsters, Inc. Yeah, this decade was Pixar's hay-day, and if it wasn't for Pixar than Disney may not have lasted the decade. 2002: Welcome to the year where everything goes wrong. For good television we've got Kids Next Door on Cartoon Network, being the last new cartoon to fall under the "Cartoon cartoon" label and Jimmy Neutron, one of the most popular CGI television shows out there. Then there's Kim Possible and Cyberchase. There were more good stuff than just this like Fillmore and Whatever Happened to Robot Jones. But here's the thing, a bad time in a media's history is not just "when there's more bad stuff than good stuff." It's when the bad stuff is more popular than the good stuff. The other good stuff of this year didn't last very long. Chalkzone, didn't last very long. What's New Scooby Doo didn't last very long. Ozzy & Drix didn't last very long. In between these shows we had to deal with the fucking Crap Twins (hint, hint, there will be a time I'll get to talk about this show again). A lot of the other stuff was just soulless and bland like Yakkity Yak and Teamo Supremo, which was the majority of the shows of this era. But there is one show I specifically want to talk about: Mucha Lucha! I'll say this right now: this was one of my favorite shows that came out this year. But Mucha Lucha has a dirty secret. This was the first mainstream television show animated with flash. In the 2010's, flash is a very useful program that allows people to add more aesthetic appeal and organize their cartoon better and opens the door to animation to many more people. In the 2000's? Flash was a novelty that allowed any greedy corporation to make cartoons absurdly cheap and absurdly quick. This is going to be a major problem that persists throughout the rest of the decade. In fact, I think that Teamo Supremo was one of the shows that used flash poorly. But you've seen them, the Johnny Test's and Pixel Pinkie's. When flash is done badly, the cartoons look lazy and lifeless. Time to talk about movies. This is a very sad year for animated movies. It's not because they're bad, but because they're good and financial failures. Disney made Treasure Planet, which was such a spectacular box office failure that the company flat out decided to stop making 2D animated films. The other big failure? The Powerpuff Girls Movie, which made Cartoon Network decide not to have any theatrical movies FOREVER (until a decade and half later with Adventure Time apparently). Why is that? Well, this was a decade before Friendship is Magic and guys liking "girly" cartoons were kind of frowned upon. Do you want to know the other movies that came out this year? Eight Crazy Nights... because yeah. The Dreamworks movie Spirit... because people still remember that movie. Ice Age, putting Blue Sky Studios on the scene. The best movie this year, by far, was Lilo & Stitch. In fact, I think that it's Disney's best movie of the decade. That's might not be saying much, but I really love this movie. However, there's one more movie we need to talk about: The live-action Scooby Doo movie. This started a long-string of stupid pandering "family" movies that are in live action with the cartoon they're adapting in badly done CGI. Pretty much all of these nostalgia cash-ins were successful from this movie up to the Smurfs. This movie was definitely successful enough to get a sequel, which I hope the Nostalgia Critic gets to sooner or later because it's worse than the first movie. This particular movie isn't the worst thing ever, but it was successful enough in all of the wrong ways. 2003: Kids television is doing pretty damn good. Xiaolin Showdown takes inspiration from Jackie Chan Adventures in a "gotta catch'em all" themed show with Asian influence. My Life as a Teenage Robot isn't great by any means, but it's enjoyable. Then there's Code Lyoko which was really good in both writing and technology. As you can see western cartoons are getting a lot more anime influence. We've seen it with things like Samurai Jack, but it's on full display here and it's definitely one of the better trends we're getting in this decade. Also, we got Teen Titans. And there were some more underrated gems that didn't last very long: Lilo & Stitch, Duck Dodgers, and Zatch Bell (I know it's an anime, but still I like the show). Also, we got another Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles revival, which was good despite the people who brought it to us. Don't think for a second that I'm not going to talk about 4kids. Now let's talk about the adult cartoons. Spike TV launches it's own animation block and every single show on it is fucking awful. Watching an episode of Adult Party Cartoon was a worse experience then getting all four of my wisdom teeth removed on the same day. Stripperella was essentially soft-core porn. Gary the Rat was doing the Allen Gregory shtick before the Allen Gregory shtick was cool. Adult Swim got no new shows this year Movies. If Treasure Planet didn't get Disney to kill its 2D department, then Brother Bear would have. I like Treasure Planet, a lot. Brother Bear is a disjointed mess of a movie. My Little Pony enters its third generation with Princess Promenade. Gag me. The only good theatrical movie this year was probably Finding Nemo, which is probably the best looking animated film ever, even moreso than How to Train Your Dragon. Other than that, you're going to have to catch a television movie like the Recess or Kim Possible movies. Or you're going to have to go to another country to catch the Tripletts of Belville. This is a pretty terrible year because there's nothing fucking happening. 2004: Yay, at least there's stuff happening this year. Unfortunately there aren't many good shows that last. The most notable ones are Danny Phantom and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Dave the Barbarian and Megas XLR were great, but they didn't last very long. I bet you've never even heard of W.I.T.C.H. A lot of the stuff this year was pretty meh, like Atomic Betty (it felt like a lot lesser version of Duck Dodgers honestly). And now the crap, which is about 75% of this year. Let's start with Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi. Straight off of their fame and success for writing the theme for Teen Titans they've got their own show, which is one of those cheaply made flash dealies. I'll give it this, at least it made a style out of it. But I've always thought that this show was to anime what Itchy & Scratchy is to actual cartoons. It's something that's only mildly interesting and should be thrown in the background. But it's the best of the bad stuff this year. Brandy & Mr. Whiskers is a soulless piece of garbage. A rich dog and and a dirty stupid bunny fall into the jungle and the show constantly beats on Brandy because she's been pampered all of her life. The shtick gets old, quickly. Blue's Clues really needed a spin-off for the new generation. And we have Da Boom Crew. Four episodes made it to air here, and the rest of the 13 aired in the UK. All you need to know about this show is that 90% of the dialogue is incomprehensible slang. In the first episode one of the characters exclaims: "Tony Hawk it later!" Adult cartoons have 12 Oz. Mouse and Drawn Together, two cult classics which I absolutely do not like. I don't see the appeal of either of these shows. I know what you're saying about 12 Oz. Mouse, it's a style. No... no it's not. It's just lazy. You want to see a show pull of this style? Watch Stickin' Around. Drawn Together is a show with South Park envy. I've watched multiple episodes. Every joke was either too stupid, too cliche, or too vulgar. The ending of the second episode literally rips off Shrek. It's trying to be subversive, but hey stupid, you cannot subvert a parody. If you took Spaceballs and replaced the villain with a baby, you wouldn't be parodying Spaceballs, you'd just be stealing Spaceballs' bit in a pitiful attempt to parody Star Wars. Before I go into full rant mode here, let's take a look at movies. Oh great, Disney released Home on the Range. That's... that's great. Oh Dreamworks released Shark Tale. But it's okay because they also release Shrek 2 permanently pigeon-holing them into "that company that makes CG movies pandering to the lowest-common denominator." The SpongeBob SquarePants movie is released in theaters, and despite enormous success is the last Nickelodeon movie released in theaters until the second one 11 years later, pretty much ending theatrical showings of animated television movies for quite some time. The best movie from this year was the Incredibles because Pixar is there to save the day always and forever until their next movie. Oh and there's the 4kids butchering of the cash-in Yu-Gi-Oh movie The Pyramid of Light. And that's just what happened in the first half of this decade. The second half of this decade is worse, at least in television. Theatrical stuff gets better. Well, it gets worse before it gets better. But still. As for television, it's only downward until 2010. Join us next time because this is going on a little bit too long. Category:Miscellaneous